CFP: Collecting Design, Craft and Fashion (2/15/06; collection)

full name / name of organization:

John Potvin

contact email:

j_potvin99@yahoo.ca

Collecting Subjects:The Meanings and Pleasures of Material Culture

We invite papers for a book which explores theinterstices between subjectivity, collecting, andcraft, fashion and design. Much has been writtenabout collecting ‘high art’ objects such as paintingsand sculpture, as well as common objects from theeveryday. However, how do we understand those objectswhich fall somewhere in between? And more importantly,what to make of the affects of collecting onsubjectivity and the relationship between collectorand producer? The objects we are attempting to examineare in practice used in the everyday, however, intheory are elevated in large measure due tosubjectivity propped up by the status of authorshipand/or uniqueness (ie. a Issey Miyake dress, Williamde Morgan tiles, an Eileen Gray lacquer screen).Conversely, if there is no identifiabledesigner/craftsperson, does the collector assume therole of arbiter and even co-creator (ie. Japanesekimono, Art Deco velvet satee, Irish lace)?

Despite collector’s attempts to order, catalogue andsystemize their coveted objects, collecting on somelevel is irrational, often emotional and psychologicalrather than defined by pure reason and logic.Subjectivity, as we understand it here, refers to howobjects help to create, construct and/or define acollector’s notion of self. As a result, we also donot understand objects as necessarily separate ordistinct from a subject’s knowledge of him/her self inthe world. How does collecting of design, craft andfashion affect the experiences/notions of space,bodies and time? In other words, how does acollector/designer envision an embodied subject’sexperiences of being in spaces occupied by objectswhich form either a homogenous, complete environmentor look or an eclecticism created through variedperiods and various cultures?

We welcome a range of submissions including, and notlimited to the following issues/themes:

- collecting objects a means toward creating personalstructure to knowledge- objects to recreate personal and collectivehistory/memory through the aesthetic- producer/consumer relationship- the identity we attribute to objects- collector as producer of meaning/knowledge- the effect of collecting on subjectivity- collecting painted pictures not as ‘fine art’, butas objects for a total design interior schema intandem with other objects- collections as part of an aesthetic domestic program- craft objects and domestic structures- relationship between collector/patron anddesigner/craftsperson- effects of patronage on craftsperson/designer- private, clandestine collections (fetish and eroticobjects)- the display of objects in the private domain- the racial, gendered and sexualized associationswith the decorative, craft and design objects- the relationship of the body to material culture andits objects- how collected objects figure in writing (exhibitionand sale catalogues, autobiographies, diaries,literary texts, etc.)- the trans-historical relationship between objects ofdifferent periods as they make up a broader interiorscheme- collecting fashion and clothing for pleasure or asdecoration and adornment for the body, home and beyond- the performance of collecting/collections- time, space and body and their theoreticalrelationship to collecting

The editors invite papers both theoretical andobject-centered from any geographic or time frame.

Please submit a 500-600 word abstract along with alist of images for completed papers to be in the rangeof 5000 to 7000 words including footnotes andbibliography, in addition to a bio of 250 words byemail to both: